Not a Typical Friday...

Friday wasn't our typical Friday for a couple of reasons. First, Justin came home EARLY! He had a test in the morning and his teacher announced that afternoon classes would be canceled that day. I was excited about this because since he was getting home early we were able to go get our first ultrasound done and find out the gender of our baby (a post to come later... sorry to keep everyone in suspense). While Justin was gone I checked the weather on weather bug to see that it was going to be another hot and humid day. I then noticed the severe weather link blinking and thought I would check it out (nothing to be concerned about because we get severe storm/tornado warnings all the time). This was a severe thunderstorm warning which said "This is a particularly dangerous situation because hail could get up to 3 inches big and gusts of wind up to 105 MPH." Again, I didn't really think much of it because I was sure it would pass over us like most storms. So, Just got home, we had lunch together and then went and got the ultrasound. After finding out, we decided to go shopping and buy the baby some new gear. We shopped around for a while and got some super cute stuff that got me really excited for the new baby, etc. We then had to run to the bank to pick up a cashiers check that needed to be turned into our apartment office, and then planned on going out to eat at TGI Fridays. The skies had been clear all day up until we stopped at the bank when a few raindrops started to come down. We were headed back to our apartment after the bank and literally were around the corner from our apartment when the skies turned especially black and the rain started to come down in buckets. The wind was ripping like crazy, throwing branches into the road. One particular time we were inches away from a huge branch crashing onto the car. We pulled into our apartment parking lot when Justin parks in front of the office and tells me to run the check in... I told him there was no way I was going out in the weather to turn in a check and the tornado sirens started to blare. He still thought I should run in the check quickly, but I informed him that I was pretty sure those sirens were telling us to take cover. He gave in and we ran into the house to find that there was no power. We grabbed some flash lights and headed into Jackson's bathroom (the furthest back room in the apartment)...the storm started to die down a little bit, but we were still out of power. Finally a half hour or so later we decided we better call TGI Fridays to see if they were even open. They were re-opening and we headed out to go to dinner.
When we got outside we saw this tree with a bunch of torn branches...We decided to just take a quick drive around the complex when we got to the back and saw this big tree in the middle of the parking lot...We thought THAT was pretty crazy (we actually didn't have our camera right then, but decided to go back home to get it and take pictures)
Once we drove back onto the road that we had just came down (where the branch almost crashed onto us) we started to see REAL crazy stuff like this...and this...and even this...There were trees and branches that had fallen down EVERYWHERE. There was one HUGE one that they were cleaning up that had fallen across the road. We were realizing we were lucky we had been driving when we were on that road and not when these ginormous trees were crashing down.
Come to find out there was an actual tornado that touched down and actually passed through this particular stretch of road that we had been driving on just seconds before it all happened. Here is the link to the article that talks about it if anyone is interested http://www.wreg.com/wreg-bartlett-stormy-weather-story,0,2504497.story

We were out of power for 50 hours and actually just got it back about 2 hours ago. I'll tell you what, it is NOT fun to lose power (especially in the south when you lose AC and it is in the 90's outside). Luckily we have great friends who did get their power back who offered up their home and food to us.

It was pretty nuts though... stay tuned for a post to come in the next couple days about BABY (boy/girl)?????? #2.